Daughter of Deceit Read Free Page B

who the caller was.
    “Bara?” It was her cousin, Murdoch Payne, Uncle Scotty’s only child.
    Bara scowled. Next to Foley, Murdoch was her least favorite person on earth. In order to reach the phone in the Jag, Murdoch’s voice had needed to travel from her house to a satellite thousands of miles above the earth and back to a very small target. Couldn’t it have gotten sidetracked along the way?
    “You didn’t forget the literacy meeting at Ann Rose Anderson’s this morning, did you?” Murdoch sounded exactly like her Aunt Nettie used to: Oh, Bara, what have you done now?
    Bara huffed. Of course she had forgotten the meeting. Who wouldn’t, with the shock of finding those medals? If she had remembered, she needn’t have gone to the grocery store until later. Ann Rose was serving lunch.
    “I didn’t forget, I’m running a little behind.”
    “It’s already ten forty. If you aren’t here in five minutes, we’re going to be late.”
    Murdoch lived in a small white house on the unfashionable fringe of Buckhead. The street hadn’t even been in Buckhead when Murdoch’s family had moved there, but Buckhead was oozing in all directions as developers co-opted the name. Winnie used to predict that all of metropolitan Atlanta would eventually be in either Buckhead or its equally prestigious neighbor, Vinings.
    “I’m coming,” Bara snapped.
    Murdoch gave another righteous huff. “You’d better hurry.”
    Some people claimed that Murdoch, eight years younger than Bara, was a saint. Hadn’t she given up her job and condo to move back in with her father after her mother’s dementia got so bad they’d had to put Eloise in a nursing home? Every time Bara heard about “Saint Murdoch,” she had to clench her teeth to keep from pointing out that Murdoch had hated her job and had never liked the one-bedroom condo that was all she could afford after she lost most of her money in the technology bubble—convinced, with her usual stubbornness, that she knew more about investing than her broker. Murdoch had been delighted to move back home and devote herself to travel and genealogy while Uncle Scotty spent his days happily serving a few clients, playing countless rounds of golf, and dropping in once a day to visit Eloise—who often had no idea who he was, but thought him charming.
    Bara sometimes wondered if Murdoch and Uncle Scotty were aware that she knew they lived comfortably because Eloise’s teacher’s pension was supplemented by income from a generous trust fund Winnie had set up to take care of his wife’s brother and his family, after Scotty climbed into the saddle of his father’s successful law firm and rode it to the brink of bankruptcy. If so, they never mentioned the fact. Murdoch often publicly praised her daddy for paying the bills so she could use her money for frequent trips and genealogy books.
    How ironic, Bara thought, that Winnie supported Murdoch, Uncle Scotty, and Eloise, when he could not support his own daughter. Not yet. He had left his estate divided between Bara and Payne with a special trust fund for little Chip, but Foley—
    She would not think of Foley. Why further ruin her day?
    She shook the flask instead, to see if there was more whiskey in it.
    “Bara? Are you still there?” Murdoch demanded.
    Bara blinked. She had forgotten she was talking to Murdoch. Murdoch was so easy to forget.
    “I’ll be there in a jiff.” She hiccupped and tried to conceal it with a cough. “The world won’t end if we’re a few minutes late.”
    “Get here as soon as you can.” Murdoch hung up with another righteous huff.
    Bara took a defiant slug before she reached for the door handle. As soon as she emptied the trunk and stopped to powder her nose, the William Tell Overture again filled her car. She punched the button and shouted to Murdoch, “Keep your britches on! I’m coming!”
    It wasn’t Murdoch, it was Payne. Murdoch must have called her, because Payne sounded like she was edging her